As a capacitor (also referred to as a condenser), a laminated ceramic capacitor is known and is mounted on a high-frequency circuit board. The laminated capacitor comprises ceramic dielectric layers of titanium oxide, barium titanate or the like and plate-like electrodes, for example, nickel electrodes. This laminated capacitor has a structure in which the plate-like electrodes are alternately stacked so as to be opposed to each other with the dielectric layers interposed between them. Since the dielectric layers comprise ceramic having a high dielectric constant, the ceramic capacitor has great capacitance in spite of a simple structure. Thus, the ceramic capacitor exhibits good high-frequency performance, and is used mainly as measures against noise in a circuit board of electrical equipment comprising an IC module.
An electrical path of the ceramic capacitor takes a simple shape. Thus, the longer the electrical path length is, the more an equivalent series inductance ESL, also referred to as a parasitic inductance, tends to be increased. Thus, to improve a high-frequency characteristic in the ceramic capacitor, a technique of reducing the electrical path length of the capacitor has been applied. For example, of capacitors whose planar shapes are formed in rectangular shapes, in each of a flip (LW inversion) type capacitor in which electrode terminals are provided on long sides, not short sides, a three-terminal capacitor in which the numbers of electrodes and terminals are increased, and the like, it is supposed that the distance between terminals is reduced and an electrical path length is shortened. However, there is a limit to reduction of sizes, and it is assumed to be difficult to further improve a high-frequency characteristic only by the above technique. In addition, the capacitors of the above-described examples do not have the same shape as that of a conventional two-terminal capacitor pad with terminals provided on short sides. Thus, it is difficult to conduct a replacement experiment on a product circuit board, and they are hard to use in a real product.
As described above, in electrical equipment, although a capacitor is disposed for suppressing noise, an ESL (parasitic inductance) of the capacitor becomes problematic at high frequency, and there is a risk that the capacitor's effect of reducing noise might not be exhibited. Against such a background, the development of a capacitor with an improved high-frequency characteristic is desired.